Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 101116, 2002 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

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Minding Your Metaphors:

Applying the Concept of Teamwork Metaphors to the Management of Teams in Multicultural Contexts
CRISTINA B. GIBSON MARY E. ZELLMER-BRUHN
THE CHALLENGE
At Eastman Chemical, USA, team leaders are called ``coaches,'' and their main role is to help teams set performance goals, assist teams in resolving personnel problems, and manage upsets and emergencies. At Wilson Corporation, USA, during the annual rewards and recognition dinner, gold, silver and bronze achievement medals are awarded to winning teams based on process improvements. At Sabre Inc., North America, team training is administered through the ``Tour de Teams'' program, in which teams progress along a route of programs, pass various milestones, and receive a ``yellow jersey'' if they are ahead of other teams. In each of these examples, managers apply the concept of being on a sports teams to work teams, with the intent to use the mental images that sports teams invoke to motivate and guide team member behavior. To many U.S. workers for whom team sports are a common part of their personal, rsthand experience, and where professional sports are a dominant national pastime, this makes a lot of sense. However, would this same concept of teamwork resonate when Eastman Chemical operates a subsidiary in Southeast Asia? Or if Sabre Inc. expands operations to Europe? Recent research suggests the answer is ``no.'' In fact, making the language of sports the dominant tool in Asia or Europe may be confusing, de-motivating, and counter-productive. In this article we explore why this might be the case. In doing so, we demonstrate that language is a powerful tool for multinational managers and explain how it can be used to manage teams across cultures more effectively. The issue of how to best manage teams across subsidiaries in a multinational rm becomes all the more important given the increased role of teams in new product development, workplace innovation, and knowledge management, and the increasing degree to which these team functions are now located throughout the world, not just at U.S.-based headquarters. Teams are a design mechanism that promotes effective collaboration, and increasingly this collaboration takes place across cultural contexts. Whether members of a team are all from one culture and must
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Gibson is the recipient of numerous awards recognizing her research, including grants from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation for International Research, the Carnegie Bosch Institute for Applied International Management, and the Center for Innovation and Management Studies. In 1996, she was awarded comprehensive funding from the National Science Foundation to investigate the implementation of teams in multinational corporations. Together with colleague Susan Cohen, she received a second 4-year research grant from the National Science Foundation in 1999 to investigate creating conditions Cristina B. Gibson is an associate research professor with the Center for Effective Organizations and the Management and Organizations Department, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. Gibson received her Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Irvine, and her bachelor's degree in psychology from Scripps College in Claremont, California. Before joining the faculty at USC, she was an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin, MD. In her work with teams in multinational organizations, Gibson strives to increase performance, longevity and quality of work life for team members from various cultures. Her research interests include communication, interaction and effectiveness in teams, the impact of culture and gender on work behavior, social cognition, and international knowledge management. She is co-editor with Susan Cohen of the forthcoming book Virtual Teams That Work: Creating the Conditions for Virtual Team Effectiveness (Jossey-Bass) and co-author with P. Christopher Earley of the book Multinational Teams: A New Perspective (Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates). Her research has appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, International Executive, Advances in International Comparative Management, Journal of Managerial Issues, and Group and Organization Management. for virtual team effectiveness.

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collaborate with other teams from other cultures, or whether the team itself is multicultural, collaborating across cultures is challenging. Nations, organizations, and functions each have their own cultures, and representatives of these identity groups see the world in unique ways, gather and process information differently, and often have contrasting expectations and priorities. This can be a source of competitive advantage or of dysfunctional conflict. Cultural differences often become obvious when work is conducted by teams. Teams allow for increased interaction, and help to structure interdependence between members to foster mutual accountability. During processes of communication and information exchange, members often become aware of each other's unique views and perceptions. Language in general, and metaphor in particular, plays a key role in these revelations.

Mary E. Zellmer-Bruhn is an assistant professor in the Strategic Management and Organization Department in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. ZellmerBruhn received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, MD. Her research areas include cross-cultural teams, team routines, the impact of deadlines on team processes and performance, and temporal issues in organizational culture. Her research has appeared in Administrative

METAPHORS FOR TEAMWORK

Metaphors are mechanisms by which we understand our experiences. We use metaphors whenever we think of one experience in terms of another. They help us to comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning. Further, our behavior reflects our metaphorical understanding of experience. Consider for example, the following statements from workers in U.S. teams: ``Among the sales people on our team, Jack is the star quarterback'' and ``Our team leader acts more like a coach than a referee.'' These statements reflect a metaphor that could be characterized as ``Work team as sports team.'' Using this metaphor involves understanding one target domain of experience (work teams) in terms of a very different source domain of experience (sports teams). There are correspondences between aspects of a sports team (e.g., the coach, the players, the players' positions, the team's field position, the score, their ranking in the competition) and aspects of a work team (e.g., the leader, the team members, their roles, their progress, their objectives, their performance

Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Group and Organization Management, Journal of Managerial Issues, and The Journal of Managerial Psychology.

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ranking in the organization). It is via such mappings that an individual in the U.S. is likely to project expectations they hold about sports teams onto the work team domain. For example, one team member from the U.S. used the sports team metaphor when he said: I think it's easy to have individual recognition within the team and still have a clear direction, but the team results are what's important. We have outstanding individuals on the team. And, very similar to a sports team, somebody needs to hit the home run; somebody needs to stop the ball. You know, somebody needs to catch'm and drag'm out. So I think it's a combination, but I think it's very difcult to play together as a team now. You know, we have bench players too. And we need bench players. We need the people that can get up and go x the equipment every day. This person's understanding of the sports metaphor will inuence his expectations of leading, or participating in, a work team. In this way, metaphor goes beyond language and plays an important role in the way we think and reason and our expectations for practice and management. In fact, employees' understanding of what it means to work in a team can be identied by examining the metaphors they use when describing their team. Further, the use of the metaphors varies systematically across cultural settings. We observed these differences while conducting research around the world between 1995 and 1998 with support from a National Science Foundation Grant. We traveled to match facilities of six pharmaceutical rms in four different geographic areas (Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the U.S.), in total visiting over 20 different sites. For example, we visited subsidiaries of a major manufacturer of baby care and personal hygiene products in France, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. We repeated this process with each of the other rms. In
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each subsidiary, we conducted 1 h interview with team members, team leaders, and team customers. Elsewhere, we have reported the techniques we used to derive the metaphors and analyze their use. By way of summary, our rst step was to develop a list of words that capture how people talked about teamwork in our interviews. Next, we asked ve raters from each country involved in the study to sort them into groups they felt represented metaphors for teamwork. Through a process of discussion, negotiation, and elimination, the raters arrived at ve piles, each of which represented a different metaphor: ``family, sports, community, associates, and military.'' Finally, we used a content analysis computer program to pull excerpts from the text database containing each term representing a metaphor. This resulted in a subtext database consisting of approximately 400 pages. We read each excerpt to determine how each term had been used, and to code what the use of each metaphor implied. As a nal step, we applied ethnostatistics, in which text data is transformed into word frequency counts. We analyzed this numeric data using advanced statistical techniques to understand the systematic variation in the use of the metaphors.

METAHPORS CONVEY EXPECTATIONS FOR TEAM SCOPE, ROLES AND OBJECTIVES

A long history of previous research suggests that most people's mental images of a team include characteristics such as what a team does (activity scope), who is on the team (roles) and why the team exists (objectives). While these basic categories of characteristics may be shared across people from different cultures and settings, within each characteristic there is room for a wide variety of interpretation. For example, when some people think of a team, they picture a project team whose activity is limited in scope to the time during which members work on the

project, whereas others may picture a team more like a family whose activity is broad and extends across a number of life domains. Likewise, some concepts of teamwork may include clearly differentiated roles, such as leaders and members, whereas others may be less structured. Finally, some people define teamwork by clear outcomes; others have argued that multiple, sometimes implicit benefits can be derived from teamwork. The teamwork literature tells us that nearly all mental images that people hold of teams contain these three elements. We used our extensive interview database to examine each of the five teamwork metaphors to determine the expectations each metaphor conveyed concerning scope, roles and objectives. Below, we explain these and offer sample quotations to illustrate the differences we found.

players, and among these players, there is somebody who is a very good one, a strong performer.

The Military Teamwork Metaphor

Military teams also tend to have a fairly limited scope, with activity limited to professional, physical and educational activities. There are strong hierarchically arranged roles, such as commander, second in charge, and the ``rank and file'' soldiers. Rank is indisputable and clearly recognized. Finally, objectives in military teams are typically extremely clear and salient, with outcomes such as life and death, survival and defeat. There is an order about the activity in the team, in that it is fully directed at these clear objectives. Use of the military metaphor is exemplified in the following quote: Obviously, it's about how do I win the battle in this society. How do I survive, as opposed to, you know, what it is that I need to do to benet everybody. [The team is] carefully measured on whether we meet objectives. Every year the company sets an annual objective and this is something that I'm going to do battle with soon.

The Sports Teamwork Metaphor

Interviewees suggested that sports teams tend to have a narrow scope, with activity limited to physical and social interaction. In other words, members of sports teams of the type most people have experienced firsthand typically only interact during practices and competitive events, and perhaps during an occasional social event. Sports teams typically have fairly clear roles, encompassing various positions on a playing field (e.g., catcher, pitcher, quarterback, center). Although there may be a coach, captain, or star player, there typically is fairly little hierarchy on sports teams. Finally, objectives are specific, with clear consequences (e.g., win or lose), and they are measurable, as represented by the myriad statistics maintained for a multitude of performance parameters. People who describe their work team with a sports metaphor are likely to hold these expectations for their work team. Use of the sports team metaphor is illustrated in the following quotation: Sports are what I'm thinking. There is a coach, and there are all these

The Family Teamwork Metaphor

Families also have clear hierarchical roles, but the ``leaders'' in a family (e.g., father and mother) tend to be more nurturing and caring than in a military team. Other clear roles in families mentioned by our interviewees included referring to team members as ``brothers'' and ``sisters.'' Activity in a family is the most broad in scope of all the metaphors. Family members often interact across nearly all domains in life including the domain of private life, psychological domain, physiological domains (food, shelter, clothing, safety, etc.), physical activity, socializing, entertainment,
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education, and in the case of a family owned business, professional activity. Finally, ``objectives'' in the formal sense are typically non-existent in a family. One might make the argument that a family exists to ``feed and clothe'' offspring, or that families struggle ``to get along,'' but these are typically not explicit nor easily measurable goals. The family metaphor is used by the following interviewee: I think maybe you've heard it from the other people, the idea of pakikisama [a Filipino word meaning teamwork]. The pakikisama is a value of working. It's more than friendship, it's more, family, mother, father, brother, sister. It's something in the team, everyone is caring for each other.

wrong. So right or wrong, he's in my neighborhood.

The Associates Teamwork Metaphor

A circle of associates is the last metaphor for teamwork we identified. Associates have the most limited activity, with interaction only occurring in the professional domain. There is some identification of roles, but there is likely to be little hierarchy, and roles may shift or be shared. Objectives in a circle of associates may be explicit, but tend to evolve and are less task oriented. Ties are based primarily on proximity and shared function. An example of this metaphor is provided by the following interviewee: Oh, I think the French culture is, I would say, very [indicates marching along with ngers], very directive. My team, my circle of associates, is more motivated by their own personal work performance, than by the collective discipline, surely. Sample expectations that coincide with each of the metaphors that we discovered are summarized in Table 1. Having identied the various components of the ve primary metaphors we uncovered in our research, we next set out to discover where each was used. We developed specic predictions about why a given metaphor may be used more frequently in one context than in another, and then tested these predictions in our interview text database. We summarize those ndings in the next section below.

The Community Teamwork Metaphor

Like families, communities are also broad in scope, often encompassing activity across a number of domains in life, including socializing, entertainment, education, and professional activity. However, unlike a family, roles in a community are typically very informal, ambiguous, and may be shared or dynamic. Communities have goals that are somewhat more concrete than those of a family (e.g., to provide support or a safe place to live), but these objectives are not as clear and do not serve to orient all activity, as in the case of sports teams or military teams. Communities are amorphous. Boundaries are often blurred, and members come and go. This metaphor is illustrated in the following quote: Being a hero to your neighbors. I think that's one way to talk about teams. And then it's more negative than positive. People in our culture, also tend to prefer to belong to an association. Like a neighborhood association. But you can also call it, ``He's my compadre,'' so he can't be
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THE ROLE OF CULTURE: WHERE EACH METAPHOR IS USED MOST AND WHY
Metaphors are categories in the minds of managers and workers. While these categories of meaning come from many sources, one very important source is national

TABLE 1
TEAMWORK METAPHOR Sports ROLES

MATCHING PRACTICES
LIKELY
TO

TO

METAPHORS
OBJECTIVES Clear and salient with outcomes such as win, lose, goals, scores, tallies, and statistics Extremely clear and salient with outcomes such as survival, life, death, de feat, occupation, or conquer

RESULT

IN

EXPECTATIONS SUCH AS . . .

SCOPE

Explicit roles such as coach Often limited to physical and and players with positions, social activity; sometimes also but a relatively flat hierarchy includes psychological domain Hierarchical roles such as commander, second in charge, and soldiers, each with indisputable rank Hierarchical roles such as mother, father, brother and sister each with varying levels of paternalistic authority Informal, ambiguous, and shared roles Typically limited to professional, physical, and educational activities

Military

Family

Very broad scope with activity Typically non-existent, covering a number of domains ambiguous, or inherent in life (e.g., private, psychological, (e.g., ``to get along'' to physiological, physical, social, ``feed and cloth'') entertainment, educational, professional) Broad scope with activity including numerous domains in life (e.g., psychological, social, entertainment, educational, professional) Typically limited to professional activity Ambiguous and non-task oriented (e.g., to provide a safe environment or sense of support) Sometimes explicit, but evolving, and less task oriented (e.g., to share the work load, provide back up, socialize)

Community

Associates

Little identification of roles

culture. National culture is a set of shared meanings that control behavior in that context. Cultures differ in specific ways. For example, cultures vary on power distance, or the degree to which members of a society accept and expect unequal distribution of power. Cultures low in power distance minimize inequalities and favor less autocratic, centralized leadership. Cultures high on power distance exhibit greater tolerance for inequalities and authoritarianism. Another important work-related value that differs across cultural settings is individualism. In individualistic cultures, there are weak ties among individuals and a strong ``self'' concept. In collectivistic societies, personal identity is deeply tied to the in-group and there are strong connections among people.

Our interview research demonstrated that the very different cognitive frameworks existing in various cultures around the world resulted in different metaphors for teamwork and varied use of these metaphors. Specically, our analyses indicated that particular elements of national culturesuch as power distance and individualismpredicted use of specic metaphors. For example, individualistic interviewees used metaphors that were narrow in scope, such as the sports metaphor and the associates metaphor. Sports teams typically have clearly dened domains and limited scope of involvement. In contrast, the community metaphor is broader in scope and was less commonly used by individualistic interviewees. Power distance was related to the use of metaphors with clear objectives such as the military
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TABLE 2

ENCOURAGING METAPHORS CONGRUENT NATIONAL CULTURES

WITH

TEAMWORK METAPHOR Sports Military Family Community Associates

CHARACTERISTICS OF NATIONAL CULTURES WHERE METAPHOR IS USED FREQUENTLY (UNDERSTOOD AND WELCOMED IN THESE SETTINGS . . .) Individualistic settings where teams are not expected to be broad in scope (e.g., the U.S.) High power distance settings were objectives are mandated (e.g., Latin America) Collectivistic settings were teams are expected to be broad in scope (e.g., Latin America) Collectivistic settings were teams are expected to be broad in scope (e.g., Southeast Asia)

CHARACTERISTICS OF NATIONAL CULTURES WHERE METAPHOR IS NON-CONGRUENT (NOT AS WELL RECEIVED IN THESE SETTINGS . . .) Collectivistic settings were membership is involuntary (e.g., Scandinavia) Low power distance settings were objectives are ambiguous (e.g., U.S.) Individualistic settings where teams are not expected to be broad in scope (e.g., France) Individualistic settings where teams are not expected to be broad in scope (e.g., the U.K.)

Individualistic settings where teams are not Collectivistic settings were membership is expected to be broad in scope (e.g., the U.K.) involuntary (e.g., Latin America)

metaphor. We summarize how the characteristics of national culture are related to use of each of the teamwork metaphors in Table 2. A second important force likely to shape teamwork metaphors is organizational culture, which is an identiable set of beliefs and norms shared by members of an organization or subunit. Organizational culture is a source of shared understanding and shapes the behaviors of organizational members. Researchers have demonstrated that patterns of organizational orientations and practices can be used to explain differences in organizational cultures. Perhaps even more so, because language is an element of organizational culture, organizational culture is likely to play a role in the development of common teamwork metaphors in an organization. For example, a performance orientation in an organization captures the degree to which an organization emphasizes achievement, service, and efciency. In our analysis, this dimension was related to the use of metaphors that included clear consequences of team activity, such as the sport and military metaphors. A second dimension of organizational culture, degree of control, captures the extent to which people take organizational membership seriously and with reverence, the degree to which members of an
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organization are expected to follow rules and procedures, the extent to which punctuality is emphasized, and the degree to which the organization is cost-conscious. In our analysis, these practices were related to the use of teamwork metaphors that contain clear role information and broad scope, such as the family metaphor. We summarize how organizational culture is related to the use of the teamwork metaphors in Table 3.

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES
The metaphors, mappings, and corresponding expectations we have described thus far come alive when we consider their use in real, ongoing teams. In this section we draw on our rich intercultural interviews to describe two scenarios in which teamwork metaphors play a critical role in team effectiveness. In the first scenario, a single manager supervises two teams. These teams are both in the same organization, and they perform the same set of tasks, but they are located at different subsidiary locations, one in the U.S. and one in Asia. In the second scenario, we examine a virtual, multicultural, self-managing team in which team members represent both different national cultures and different organizational cultures.

TABLE 3

ENCOURAGING METAPHORS CONGRUENT ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES

WITH

TEAMWORK METAPHOR Sports

CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES WHERE METAPHOR IS USED FREQUENTLY (WELCOMED IN THESE SETTINGS . . .)

CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES WHERE METAPHOR IS NON-CONGRUENT (NOT AS WELL RECEIVED IN THESE SETTINGS . . .)

Organizations that place an emphasis on Organizations that place an emphasis tight performance (and thus have clear objectives) control (and thus have clear hierarchical roles) (e.g., Photoco (Kodak) and Medco (GE)) (e.g., Chemco (Pfizer)) Organizations that place an emphasis tight Organizations that emphasize loose control and control (and thus have clear roles) or on empowerment (and thus emphasize shared performance (and thus have clear objectives) roles) (e.g., Healthco (J&J)) (e.g., Pharmco (Merck)) Organizations that emphasize tight control (and thus have clear roles). (e.g., Chemco (Pfizer) and Pharmco (Merck)) Organizations that emphasize loose control (and thus have shared roles) (e.g., Photoco (Kodak) and Medco (GE)) Organizations that emphasize performance (and thus have clear objectives) (e.g., Photoco (Kodak)) Organizations that place an emphasis tight control (and thus have clear hierarchical roles) or those that emphasize performance (and thus have clear objectives) (e.g., Pharmco (Merck)) Organizations that place an emphasis tight control (and thus have clear hierarchical roles) (e.g., Pharmco (Merck), Biomedco (SKB))

Military

Family

Community

Associates

Organizations that emphasize loose control (and thus have shared roles) (e.g., Healthco (J&J))

Scenario #1: Same Team Function Different Expectations

What the team is, really, is the whole supply chain. I mean we start at marketing with the order or with the customer wherever we get the order from, and we end at manufacturing. We don't get into there, but anything else that has to do with the product, that is us. Customer service, product handling, transportation, demand planning functions, and inventory control. By Fred, Director of Logistics, Photoco As a rst example, consider two logistic teams, each of which consists of six members, all responsible for logistics (i.e., receiving, warehousing and distribution) operations in a different region (e.g., one in Southeast Asia and the other in the U.S.). All the mem-

bers of the two logistic teams are employed by ``Photoco,'' a company that develops, manufactures, sells, distributes, and services imaging equipment and support products such as lm. Photoco has been struggling for several years. The organization culture is fragmented as a result of divesting and downsizing. The focus has been on cost reduction and reinforcing the traditional, established excellence of a long-standing product line. The manager in this scenario, Fred, supervises both the Asian and U.S. logistic teams. Although they have the same function and are from the same organization, the team in Asia has a very different set of cultural values than the team in the U.S. The Asian team emphasizes collectivism and high power distance, while the U.S. team emphasizes individualism and low power distance. As a result, the Asian team refers to itself as a community, using the community metaphor. For example, consider the following quote from Julia, a Filipino logistics coordinator:
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I think most Filipinos are very regionalistic. In the work place, most Filipinos would, would tend to clump together with co-town mates or barrio mates or province mates. They think of the team like that. That means it is a natural thing to just open up to anyone on the team. And that would be subtly felt in, let's say, in the process of training teams. Coinciding with the use of this metaphor, the team members are comfortable with ambiguous informal roles, they are less task-oriented, and instead focus on social opportunities, educational activities, and support of one another across all domains of activity. In contrast, the U.S. team refers to itself as a circle of associates, using the associates metaphor. For example, consider the following quote from Sam, a U.S. logistics operations specialist: The responsibilities, which we ask each team member to hold, help us to function as if we were a franchise, or a circle of associates. Members are given as much autonomy and freedom and empowerment as we possibly can give, to make decisions at the local level. In contrast to the community metaphor, this ``mental picture'' of a team carried with it very different expectations. Members were relatively autonomous. They interacted in a professional sense only, and did not socialize outside of the work place. Roles and responsibilities were very clear. Because the Asian team and the U.S. team did not directly interact with one another, these different concepts of teaming, in and of themselves, are not that problematic. The turmoil occurred when their supervisor Fred attempted to manage the two teams in exactly the same manner. Fred was from the U.S., and therefore shared some of the common assumptions about teams that the U.S. logistics team held. The associates metaphor came naturally to him, as did
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the associated expectations for roles, scope and objectives. He applied those assumptions to manage the Asian team in ``cookie cutter'' fashion, and as a result, met great difculties. The Asian team members expected much more direction from Fred than he offered. The Asian team members were disappointed with his leadership style and felt as though he wasn't doing his job adequately. They expected Fred to interact socially with the team whenever he was in the country, and to be involved with the team members at a more personal level, engaging with them about activities that extended beyond the team task. When he did not do so, they perceived his behavior (or lack of it) as insensitive and uncaring, and therefore did not trust him. When he attempted to implement changes in teamwork processes, they were skeptical and resisted. In the nal analysis, the team was deemed ineffective, and Fred was counseled for poor leadership. Had Fred been aware of the concept of teamwork metaphors, and listened to the language being used by team members across the two teams, he may have been able to use the concept as a diagnostic tool. This may have helped him to avoid the difculties he faced, as we describe below, after a description of Scenario #2.

Scenario #2: Multiple Multicultural Metaphors

I'm very heavy on my belief in teams, the use of teams. And when I came here, I started coming up with teams that would be involved with certain activities. One of the most active ones would be the strategy team, composed of heads of all the regions. By Mike, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Marketing Strategy Consortium, Pharmco As a second example, consider the Marketing Strategy Consortium (Team MSC),

that consists of 12 members, each of whom represents a different pharmaceutical company within a variety of countries in the U.S., Central America, and Latin America. The team is a ``parallel'' team, meaning that it pulls people from different organizations (or jobs) to perform functions that the regular organization structures are not well equipped to perform. Parallel teams typically have limited authority, and often make recommendations to people higher up in their respective organization. Parallel teams are often used for problem solving and improvement activities. The objective of Team MSC is to develop a consistent marketing strategy for the industry across products and nations, in order to strengthen the overall state of the industry in the region. The countries that members of Team MSC are from have very different cultures. Specically, they differ in terms of the national cultural valuesindividualism and power distancethat we mentioned earlier. Latin Americans and Central Americans tend to be low on individualism and high on power distance. People in the U.S. tend to be high on individualism and low on power distance. Further, although all of the members of Team MSC are employed by organizations that develop, manufacture, sell, and distribute pharmaceutical products, these organizations differ dramatically in their organizational cultures. For example, one of the companies, Pharmco, emphasizes tight control, and clear roles and hierarchy. A second company, Healthco, on the other hand, emphasizes results and objective-driven performance, as well as exibility and extensive autonomy for subsidiaries. As a result of their cultural differences (both national and organizational), the members of Team MSC use a variety of metaphors for teamwork in their everyday language as they interact with each other. For example, consider Margie, a Puerto Rican director of marketing representing Pharmco. The national cultural values representative of Puerto Rico are collectivistic, and the organizational culture of Pharmco emphasizes tight control. Likely as a result, Margie tends

to talk about Team MSC as if it were a family. A quote that exemplies this is: We are a Pharmco family. So, you can see day by day that we work ``among.'' Among. And if I produce a lot that goes to the next stepthat is advertising strategyand they have problems on that stage, I have to be involved with them to make sure to correct that problem. I guess I am the mother, but there is also a father, and sisters and brothers. So, we always socialize and always work together, like a family. In contrast, Jack, a regional marketing manager from the U.S., represents the Healthco corporation. People from the U.S. tend to be individualistic and Healthco emphasizes performance and clear objectives. As a result, Jack describes Team MSC as a sports team. A quote that exemplied this is: The other thing that happens, when you say to the team, ``Okay, you're empowered,'' you can use the sports analogy, you'll nd the second baseman running out to center eld to try and catch the y ball. ``You say, no, no, no, no, wait!'' However, if there is a line drive out to left eld and it hits the ground and he picks it up and he throws on to rst baseif you ever notice at a baseball game, every time that happens, the catcher runs out from behind home plate and he gets behindthose boundaryless things, I think, need to happen for a successful team. These contrasting metaphors caused real challenges on the team, because they carried very different implicit expectations in terms of roles, scope and the structuring of objectives. Margie expected that the team would be run like a family, that members would be fully involved in each other's lives and would share in personal milestones, celebrations and
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concerns. She expected there to be a maternal or paternal leader. In contrast, Jack expected that the team would be more a like a sports team with a focus on winning and losing, players with ``positions,'' and the ``score.'' No matter which intervention was implemented, team members were constantly in conict over how the team should be managed. They disagreed on basic work processes, and more fundamentally, on scope, roles and objectives of the team. Again, had the team members been aware of the metaphors they utilize, and the corresponding expectations the metaphors imply, they may have been better equipped to address the challenges of multicultural teaming.

USING METAPHORS IN MANAGEMENT

As illustrated above, on a basic level, our findings suggest that the meaning of teamwork is culturally contingent. As a result, the implementation of universal team practices across subsidiaries in different countries will not work. Rather, managers can be more effective if they make the effort to identify which teamwork metaphors are likely understood and welcomed in each context. As illustrated above, in some contexts, the use of certain metaphors may be confusing, or at the extreme even insulting. Below, we describe three ways in which teamwork metaphors can be utilized in practice.

ment very specific task definitions, and to limit work to the task context, since this is a central element in members understanding of teamwork. Such objectives will meet members' expectations and enhance their ability to work together. Alternatively, the community metaphor does not convey as much information about goals and objectives, but instead emphasizes teams as small social support groups. If the community metaphor is dominant, then a focus on the professionalism of the team may backfire because team members do not envision this as representative of teamwork. In this way, managers can use metaphors as a way to identify team members' expectations about their roles and the role of team. For example, demonstrating the impact of the military metaphor one respondent in the Puerto Rico team said: As the leader, I am supposed to be an active shooter in terms of assisting, you now, liasoning with the people and making sure that [the company's] kinds of problems are run at sort of a management level. At the moment it is very [prevalent in the] rank and le, but not really with the staff. We have not really gone to the reduction of a lot of employees. So I'm helping to do that. Right now we're having to think in terms of manpower. In this quote, the metaphor implies prescriptions for attitudes and team behavior. Specically, the military metaphor resulted in the belief that the leader has a clear role as conduit to upper management. Activity was directed at upward reporting of problems associated with manpower. The quote implies that teams that utilize the military metaphor will likely be more effective when managed in a way that recognizes status relationships and incorporates these into the team structure. In the Puerto Rico setting, team members are likely to be more receptive to teams managed in a way consistent with the military metaphor.

Matching Practices to Metaphors

Our results have several key implications for international management practice. First, managers need to consider matching practices and actions with dominant metaphors (see again Table 1). In Scenario #1, Fred failed to do this, but could have if he had been more cognizant of the metaphors being used in each of the settings. For example, the associates metaphor conveys clear information about professionalism and scope. In a setting where the associates metaphor is dominant, it may be appropriate to develop and imple112 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS

Establishing Metaphors Congruent with National and Organizational Cultures

There is a second way that metaphors can guide practice. Intercultural research has established that organizations are more effective when management practices in a work unit are congruent with national culture. Given that multinational organizations often operate across several cultures, these organizations face great challenges in managing teams. We argue that identifying and appropriately reinforcing particular metaphors that are congruent to and reinforce the values emphasized in a given culture is likely to have a positive impact on team effectiveness. For example, the Philippines is a very collectivistic national context. As we suggest in Table 2, the community metaphor is consistent with collectivistic values, in that a community is broad in scope, and collective behavior encompasses many aspects of life in a collectivistic culture. Demonstrating the use of the community metaphor, one respondent in the Philippines said: That's called a nipa hut. Sometimes you do require that the hut be moved from one location to another. And in the old days, nipa huts would probably be located along the safe side of a river because there's water there, sh would be there. Some erosion could happen and you would need to relocate the hut to a safer ground. In the Philippines, you would gather your neighbors, call them, and you would put on handles and literally lift the housein one, big haul, the house as one big piece, and move it to a new location. And that's called the bayanihan spirit. I think that would best describe in my culture, how teams can work. Using the same metaphor, another Filipino respondent said: I think most Filipinos have where they're very regionalistic, I think.

That most Filipinos would, would tend to clump together with, with co-town mates or barrio mates or province mates. That, I think itself, uh, it it's natural thing to just opening up to just anyone. These excerpts demonstrate that the community metaphor shaped beliefs about who should be considered a part of a team and how central a role the team will serve in the respondents work life. Again, drawing upon the rationale of cultural congruence, we would expect that where a cultural assessment reveals that collectivism is valued, managers who emphasize the community metaphor over other metaphor categories would meet with more team success. Further, as implied with the community metaphor, the team will be most effective when it is dened broadly, consisting of many individuals who have some connection to each other, even if these individuals are on the periphery of the central activity of the team. In addition to helping managers consider the choice of metaphors among the categories we identied (e.g., community over military), we also suggest that these results can help managers tailor choices within metaphor categories. We must make it clear that our work does not suggest that managers in cultural contexts such as the Philippines would be wrong to use a sports metaphor (or other metaphor conveying similar information), but rather that even within metaphor categories there are likely to be some choices. For example, if a manager of a Philippine team decides to use a sports metaphor to explain her expectations to the team, she would be best served by referring to a sports team that more accurately portrays the typical expectations of the country culture. Soccer may be more readily understood as the subject of a sports metaphor in Latin America than U.S. football. Soccer has much less clear hierarchy and role denition than U.S. football, for example, so in addition to familiarity because it is a national pastime in many Latin American countries,
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the information about scope and roles is more closely aligned with the cultural values as well. As a result of the issues we illustrated with the U.S. team and the Asian team and their metaphor use, a second alternative for Fred, the manager in Scenario #1, would be for him to attempt to better understand the cultural context in each country. For example, this understanding can be facilitated by measuring the cultural values mentioned in Tables 2 and 3. This assessment is typically completed by attitudinal measures (e.g., a survey instrument), or by discussion and observation. With cultural values and orientations identied, the manager might then encourage metaphors (both by category and within category) in each context that are consistent with the dominant cultures, using these metaphors in his own language, during communication with the team.

Sharing Metaphors and Building Mutual Understanding

Finally, as illustrated in Scenario #2, research on multicultural teams suggests that a serious challenge faced by these teams is a lack of shared understanding and meaning. Having team members define their understanding of teamwork prior to commencing work may help to bridge these gaps in understanding. In this way, managers can use conscious identification and sharing of metaphors within the team as a tool to promote understanding and proactively identify sources of potential conflict within multinational teams. In contrast, no effort was undertaken in Scenario #2 to share expectations for teamwork. This may have been a key explanation for the demise of the team. International management scholar Martha Maznevski and her colleagues suggest a three-step process for sharing within multicultural teams that involves: (1) understanding differences in cultures, (2) bridging the differences, and (3) integration. To help in understanding cultural differences, we suggest that cross-cultural teams hold an initial session at their formation to discuss team114 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS

work metaphors, and corresponding expectations about specic team behaviors which are felt to be critical to the team's success. Each member might be asked to describe their preferred approach, identifying where problems might arise across members. From this discussion, potential problem areas could be identied along with possible solutions. This method, of course, assumes that team members are able to articulate cultural norms which in reality may not necessarily be the case. Given this dilemma, it may be useful to have an third party intervene who could advise teams at the onset what they might expect in terms of cultural differences and how these might manifest themselves in dysfunctional ways. The second stepbridgingrequires nding commonalities among members. A specic process that enables this is de-centering, dened as the process of sending and receiving communication with the other person's perspective in mind. The fundamental idea of de-centering is empathy: feeling and understanding as another person does. This may require some initial training for the team in active listening and interpersonal behavioral skills. Also in conjunction with this step, the team might consider carefully the task, objectives and priorities that comprise their mandate. It may be that certain metaphors are more appropriate for certain missions. In this way, focusing on the team's mission may help them to de-center and arrive at a shared understanding of expectations for teamwork. The nal stepintegrationrequires blame-free explanations and problem solving. Research indicates that the single best predictor of effective group integration is team members' willingness to suspend blame for problems and to explain problems by trying to understand how members' different perspectives could have led the group as a whole to experience difculties. This leads the team onward toward exploring alternatives and building a shared reality, developing trust and common rules, and building condence in the team's ability to use different perceptions productively.

Another means of overcoming differences in groups is the development of a mutually agreed upon set of expectations, referred to by scholar Chris Earley and his colleagues as a ``hybrid culture.'' A hybrid team culture refers to a set of rules, expectations, and member perceptions that individuals within a team develop, share, and create after mutual interactions. A shared group culture appears to be important for team functioning. Shared metaphors for teamwork are likely an important component of hybrid cultures, and leaders may play an role in creating and managing hybrid cultures, by identifying key issues and points of contention around which shared understanding should be developed. In particular, managers in multinational organizations can help create hybrid cultures by bridging the home ofce and overseas ofce cultures, which can mean facilitating the proper handling of seemingly incongruent values and priorities.

CONCLUSIONS
The concept of teamwork metaphors advances the practice of multinational management. Due to the lack of empirical research regarding teams across cultures, leaders within multinational organizations have, up to this point, been forced to make educated guesses as to the most appropriate method of implementing teams across their various geographic facilities. Among other key insights, the concepts described here provide guidance regarding the meaning systems that must be managed order to successfully implement teams in interculturally. More specifically, these ideas shed light on the impact metaphors for teamwork, on the quality of the work experience, and the effectiveness of teams.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
For a detailed account of the derivation and intercultural variation of teamwork metaphors see Cristina Gibson and Mary E. Zellmer-Bruhn's article entitled ``Metaphors for Teamwork: An Intercultural Analysis of the Concept of Teamwork'' in Administrative Science Quarterly, 2001, 46, 274303. For a more comprehensive discussion of the theory underlying the management of multicultural teams, see P. Christopher Earley and Cristina Gibson's book entitled Multinational Teams: A New Perspective (Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates, 2002). For a general discussion about the use of self-managing work teams in a multinational context, see Bradley Kirkman, Cristina Gibson and Debra Shapiro's article entitled, ``Exporting Teams: Enhancing the Implementation and Effectiveness of Work Teams in Global Affiliates,'' in Organization Dynamics, 2001, 30, 1229; and Bradley Kirkman and Debra Shapiro's article ``The Impact of Cultural Values on Employee Resistance to Teams: Toward a Model of Globalized Self-Managing Work Team Effectiveness,'' in Academy of Management Review, 1997, 22, 730757. For an empirical test of the propositions found in the above article, see their article, ``The Impact of Cultural Values on Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment in Self-Managing Work Teams: The Mediating Role of Employee Resistance,'' in Academy of Management Journal, 2001, 44, 557569. For more information on bridging cultural differences, see Martha Maznevski's book with Henry Lane and Joe Destefano entitled International Management Behavior (Blackwell Publishers, 1997) and her article entitled ``Understanding our Differences: Performance in Decision-Making Groups with Diverse Members,'' in Human Relations, 1994, 47, 531552; and P. Christopher Earley's article with Elaine Mosakowski entitled, ``Creating Hybrid Team Cultures: An Empirical Test of Transnational Team Functioning,'' in Academy of Management Journal, 2000, 43, 2650. For additional reading on cultural value differences between countries in general, see Michael Gannon's book Understanding Global Cultures: Metaphorical Journeys Through 17 Countries (Sage, 1994); Geert Hofstede's book, Culture's Consequences (Sage, 1980); his article entitled, ``Motivation, Leadership, and Organizations: Do American Theories Apply Abroad?'' in Organizational Dynamics (Summer, 1980); and his article entitled, ``Cultural Constraints in Management Theories,'' in Academy of Management Executive (February, 1993); Fons Trompenaars book, Riding the Waves of Culture (Irwin, 1993); Miriam Erez and P. Christopher Earley's books entitled, Culture, Self-identity and Work (Oxford, 1993) and The Transplanted Executive (Oxford, 1997); and K. Newman and S. Nolan's article entitled, ``Culture and Congruence: The Fit Between Management Practices and National Cultures,'' in Journal of International Business Studies, 1994, 27, 753779. For additional perspectives on the meaning and use of metaphor, see George Lakoff's chapter entitled, ``The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor,'' in Andrew Ortony's (Ed.), Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1993, 202252) and Cora Strauss and Nancy Quinn's book A Cognitive Theory of Cultural Meaning (Cambridge University Press, 1997).

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